Talking the talk

1. To hammer is to pedal vigorously. "Ride easy for the first 80 percent of the hill, and then hammer the last 20 percent.

2. To rip is to ride very fast. "Adrian was ripping the waterfall section at the top of the Chutes."

3. To bonk is to ride too long or hard without proper nutrition, sleep, or both. "Evan was up late last night and skipped breakfast this morning. It's no wonder he bonked on the last hill climb."

4. To leg over a bike essentially means "to wear a helmet," as one should never straddle a bike without wearing a helmet.

5. A taco is what happens to a wheel after a crash bends the rim so badly it folds over like a taco and won't roll. "Adrian taco'd his wheel today."

Source: Coach Ross Bennett

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Mountain biking is gaining traction as an organized, competitive sport in high schools across Southern California — and Orange County.

The SoCal High School Cycling League had 14 teams and 77 regular riders when it was first created in 2009. It now has 34 teams registered and more than 300 riders expected to participate in the 2013 race season, which begins next month.

Orange County has also seen substantial growth on par with national trends. It only had one six-person team in 2009. It now has 45 competitors on 5 teams, three of which were established this year.

"The great thing about mountain biking is that, like life, it's about climbing hills," said Ross Bennett, head coach of the new Foothill High School team in Tustin.

Bennett says that the team is about more than just competition. Community service, trail etiquette, and safety are some of the values that Bennett tries to reinforce with his riders. Parental involvement is also a key ingredient.

"The parents are not sitting on the sideline watching (like with) soccer or football, they're all involved," he said. "Our events are like camping outings. You go out for the weekend and you build the trails on Saturday and you race and tear them down on Sunday. They're temporary, but they look like pro-circuit races."

School administrators have been supportive of the racing programs, a Foothill parent said, but only a handful of schools in Southern California award P.E. credit.

"The school says it's hard to monitor how much exercise mountain biking is," says sophomore Ben Bennett, who co-founded the Foothill team with Chris Taylor. "If they got out there and went for a ride, they would see that it's a lot harder than any P.E. class."

El Toro High School and Tustin High School are also making their race debuts this year, with 10 and 6 respective racers. Corona del Mar High School and South Orange County Composite are the other two teams representing Orange County.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ROOTS

More than 3,000 riders and 200 high schools nationwide participate in competitions governed by the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, which was formed in 2009. But the history of competitive high school cycling goes back much further.

The whole craze started when Matt Fritzinger, a math teacher at Berkeley High School, decided to start a cycling club in 1998. The idea caught on and eventually led to the creation of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike Racing League three years later.

It was not until Quintin Reich of Corona del Mar approached the NorCal league with a $200,000 check from the Easton Foundation — a non-profit affiliated with the Van Nuys-based sporting goods manufacturer — that organizers were able to package the organization and export it to other areas.

"Easton was pivotal. Without it we would not have launched SoCal," says Austin McInerny, executive director of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, the governing body set up after the southern league was established.

The creation of the SoCal league provided the "recipe in a box" — as Reich describes it — which set the stage for mass exportation of high school cycling leagues across the country.

The association hopes to eventually establish an unbroken line of sister leagues between Southern California and New York, so that that there is "coast-to-coast mountain biking by 2020," says Matt Gunnell, executive director of the SoCal league.

Gunnell says he is pleased with the astounding growth in the number of leagues and riders, but admits that high school mountain biking still has a long way to go.

"When you look at how many kids are playing football versus riding mountain bikes, we're still a drop in the bucket."

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